


Fate's Horrifying Ways (also known as: CHRISTMAS GODZILLA)

by linearoundmythoughts



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pacific Rim Secret Santa 2014, don't think about the backstory or setting of this too much it's just for fun shhhhhhhhhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-05 19:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15178139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linearoundmythoughts/pseuds/linearoundmythoughts
Summary: Your name is Newton Geiszler and you’re going to have to break things off with your sort-of online boyfriend because you’re cheating on him. Sort of. [AKA the most dramatic summary of a humorous crackfic ever ok]Originally written for the Pacrim Secret Santa back in 2014.





	Fate's Horrifying Ways (also known as: CHRISTMAS GODZILLA)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-upload. My original notes read as such:
> 
>  
> 
> _oh man, i had a blast writing this, thank you for the awesome prompt, tumblr user ninjaninaiii!! you wanted "stupidly ridiculous AUs or like - pick your fave AU man i'd really like something happy and possibly festive and fluffly but Crack. Crack is amazing. Newt doing ridiculous shit. Hermann being a dumbass loving husband." THOSE ARE ALL MY FAVE THINGS TOO LIKE REALLY THAT'S THE BEST PROMPT EVER, THANK YOU! i was the person who totally failed at being cool about asking you what AUs you liked on anon, so i built most of this fic off the holiday AU list you suggested! and i DID pick my fave AU ([in case that link stops working](https://78.media.tumblr.com/eb898c39583a0f6d121dc8383c9a112e/tumblr_inline_oa6uz6OrNb1t1enix_540.png)) so thank you for giving me an excuse to write it! This is the first time I've written fic in a loooong time—thanks for getting me back in the game. I hope it makes you smile! Merry Christmas, dude!_

______________________

**_December 2028_ **

After hours of tossing and turning, Newton sat up with a start. It was the dead of night and a _brilliant_ spark of inspiration had just hit him.

He started shaking his husband awake. “Hermann, Hermann, I just remembered!”

Hermann groaned and pulled the comforter over his face, rolling up tightly away from Newton’s onslaught. He finally gave up and rolled over to face Newton, after it was clear he didn’t intend to _stop_. “For God’s sake, Newton, what _is it?_ ”

“CHRISTMAS GODZILLA!” Newton shouted, beaming. “Do you remember Christmas Godzilla?”

Hermann blinked back, deliriously, clearly not remembering.

“Dude, we _met_ because of Christmas Godzilla!”

“Please, I don’t want to go over _again_ how we _met,_ just go back to sleep, Newton!”

“We gotta make him, Hermann. We gotta. It’s not _fair_. It’s like a Christmas emergency! How will we celebrate Christmas properly without him!”

Hermann crossed his eyes out of frustration. “But we’re Jewish…”

Newton sighed in exasperation, his lips vibrating as he exhaled. “Everyone celebrates Christmas, including us! And, excuse you, I’m more Jewish than you, anyway.”

Hermann turned slowly to glare at Newton. “ _More_ Jewish?”

“Duh. My family’s Jewish, and we still did Christmas.” Newton started rummaging around on his bedside table for his glasses.

“My family is Jewish, too…”

Newton threw himself across Hermann and began searching the other bedside table, still looking for his glasses. “Come on man, concentrate on the _important_ things here, like—”

“We were married in a synagogue under a chuppah—we, we had an _entirely Jewish wedding ceremony, how much more Jewish do you_ want _us to_ be?”

Newton eventually found his glasses, slid them on, and gave Hermann an impressively fierce look. “ _CHRISTMAS GODZILLA!_ ” he exclaimed, waving his hands to emphasis.

“Oh, FINE!” Hermann scowled, rolling back into his blankets. Newton jumped off their bed with a _whoop_ of happiness. “I’ll draw up the schematics again, if you need them…”

Newton stopped stomping around their room at this last comment, and walked back over to Hermann. “I kept them, of course I did. Still have them somewhere…but thank you,” Newton said, leaning down to kiss Hermann on the cheek. “I can’t sleep, so I’m gonna go work on this.”

The unspoken _you sleep well_ was not lost on Hermann. He reached up to cup the side of Newton’s face, turning over and sitting up enough to kiss him back, tenderly. He couldn’t help himself. “Go on, go tire yourself out, see if you don’t end up coming back to bed.”

Newt grinned and kissed Hermann a few more times, sloppily, sincerely, before taking off to go start on his plans.

**______________________ **

**_December 2013_ **

Newt was only one drink in when he stupidly blurted out to his online boyfriend that he had been, you know, _considering him_ to be an “online boyfriend” for a while now, and Newt just wanted to crawl under his desk and hide. Why did he do that. _Why did he do that??_

He’d actually started to sink to the floor, leaving the last sip of his Vodka Red Bull (yeah, that was _also_ a really bad idea, in retrospect) behind, alongside his laptop, when he couldn’t stand watching the little pencil icon aimlessly scribbling away. His chat partner still hadn’t finished composing his message. It seemed like he was constantly typing it out and then deleting it, the pencil dropping away only to spring back up. Nope, Newt couldn’t stand it! Hanging out on the floor seemed like a _great_ _idea_ after everything, except Newt shot back up on his feet (or tried to, anyway—getting tangled up in his chair wasn’t so bad, since it was keeping him upright) when he heard a familiar _ding_.

> H. yuo consider moe vto be your boyfriend ?

Newt blinked, biting his lip hard enough to keep himself in one piece. He knew H. was probably more than a little drunk too—they’d kinda just ended up having this impromptu drinking party in celebration of something involving H.’s education turning out how he’d hoped. H. was the kind of guy who liked to keep the details of his life kinda vague, so Newt didn’t _totally_ get what had happened, but he knew how exciting getting into the program you dreamed of was, so he was _totally_ down for having a drink to that.

Still, Newt had never expected to see H. _type like that_.

He hovered his hands over the keyboard, trying to pause and think before he spoke, but even he knew that was a pointless exercise.

> ℕεẘт imj srory
> 
> ℕεẘт &iim srgry
> 
> ℕεẘт **im srry

Nope…dammit…oh, fuck it! He tried to focus, tried to get his brain to serve him up some thought better than cursing at himself, but it wasn’t happening.

> H. STorp saying that.
> 
> H. Is its fine.

Newt was alone, but he still went _huh?_ to himself out loud. How was this…what?

He crawled back into his seat properly, and for the next half hour, focused on his conversation with H.

Newt was still so _embarrassed_ , but H. was really cool about it. Granted, they had met under really bizarre circumstances, so maybe H. was being nice about it ‘cause he still kinda _owed_ Newt for how weird that all was, but then again, H. was always real gentlemanly and formal (and pissy, but maybe that was just talking online for you, text could be kinda toneless, right?)

They talked it out, and while Newt’s head just got blurrier, it ended on a positive note. He reread the transcript the next morning, and it seemed that H. just found the concept of being “online boyfriends” ridiculous, but harmless. He wasn’t offended, thank God, and he didn’t seem to think Newt was weird or anything. Or, well, weirder than Newt was sure everyone found him.

The most baffling thing was that H. didn’t say whether they were boyfriends or _not_. Which was _fine_ , since it wasn’t a _no_ , but yeah, maybe it was the reality check Newt needed. He didn’t even know where H. lived—or his full name…he’d never seen a pic of him…okay, so, he’d fallen for him all the _same_ (you know, in a _totally casual way_ , talking to H. wasn’t the high point of his day or _anything_ ) but. H. had a point in deferring the topic. Newt hadn’t meant to get all _MySpace era_ on him—he’d been trying to work towards the idea that it would be nice if they could do stuff like have celebration drinks in person, since they’d grown to be so close online, talking for hours pretty much every day like they did…like usual, he’d had good plans in _mind_.

Messaging H. now was just going to add insult to injury to Newt’s poor ego, so he decided to get out of his apartment for a while, go find something _else_ to obsess over. He grabbed his keys and phone as he headed for the door.

____________________

 

Hermann was sitting on the bar stool they let him have behind the register at his stupid seasonal temporary job, praying the last fifteen minutes would hurry up and pass. He was exhausted, still feeling the effects of having drank so much last night, and he just wanted to go home, take a hot shower, and crawl into bed. This asinine job barely paid him enough for it to be worth his time, but he did need the money, so he had to endure it. Working in a holiday-themed store was _far_ from what he thought he’d be doing at this age, but at least the place was unpopular at this time of night and therefore, empty. Most of the time.

He flicked his phone’s screen on, his lockscreen appearing without any new message alerts. He had his ringer on, so he would’ve heard a sound if he’d gotten a Skype IM, but he couldn’t help himself from checking, just in case. _8:47pm_ glared back at him, and he went to pocket his phone when he saw a customer approaching out of the corner of his eye.

Hermann reached for his cane, to stand up and greet the customer. Of course, someone _would_ finally come in at the last minute, purchasing some _absurd_ amount of decorations. He glared at the cart, full of about ten wreaths—really now, _ten_? He lifted his eyes to see what kind of customer _oh mein gott_

He automatically dropped his phone as he tried to process _how Newton Geiszler was here, in the flesh_.

“Oh, you dropped your phone! Is that one of those silly oversized Androids?” the man— _Newton_ —said, pointing. Hermann didn’t react. He _couldn’t_ react right now…he…he fluttered his eyelids a few times, trying to snap out of it. Hermann hadn’t been expecting Newton to be a few inches shorter than himself. He wasn’t ready to have his brain explore any other _hadn’t been expecting_ ’s, and before he could knew what was happening, Newton came around the side of the front counter, slid to his knees, and shot back up, holding Hermann’s phone, smiling wide. There hadn’t been much space between where Herman was standing and the counter…Newton was practically _flush_ against him and -

“Y-You can’t _be back here!_ ” Hermann yelled, taking a step back.

Newt flinched, scrunching his mouth up small. “Uh, sorry man, just tryin’ to help.” With his back still to the counter, he hopped up on it and in one fluid motion, pulled his legs up close, spun around, and jumped off the other side.

“Don’t—don’t _climb_ on this!” Hermann shouted, feeling himself flush.

Newton threw his hands up, projecting defensiveness. “Dude, I’m real sorry, just…ring up my shit and I’ll leave, okay? No need to shout.”

Hermann was at an absolute loss. He went to type in the code for “special holiday wreath”, times ten, on the register, but he had to put his phone down first…he already knew the price plus tax, it was _simple_ , but his boss said he had to start using the register and—

It dawned on Hermann, as he looked back at Newton, that _nothing_ was dawning in Newton’s face. _Does he have no idea who I am?_

Newton wasn’t phased by Hermann in the least—he was too busy patting down his own pockets, cursing at himself. “Fuck, I think I forgot my wallet. Can you like—can you keep this until tomorrow, and I’ll come get it? Thanks man!” Newton grinned, and started dashing for the exit. “Oh, by the way, my name’s Newt!” he called back, before the door shut.

 _Well, obviously not. Why_ would _he_ , Hermann realized. Out of the two of them, one of them could barely use a computer, and it certainly wasn’t _himself_ who was that inept. Why would Newton have been able to deduce who he was just based off their Skype conversations? He’d never revealed any proficiency for such things—it had taken him an exceptionally long time to realize that his computer wasn’t “killing itself for no reason” when Hermann had hacked it a few months ago.

Not his proudest moment. He’d been _bored_ and _frustrated_ the last few months, waiting to hear word on the graduate program he applied to, so he could get back to his education. Taking a gap year had proven pointless. He’d fallen back into some of his more shameful hobbies from his teenage years, scrolling through internet forums, reading up on this and that about computers…for example, more through how-to guides on how to remotely control someone’s computer in a new workaround—something he hadn’t done since he was living at home, trying to get back at his siblings in useless, half-hearted feuds.

Hermann hadn’t intended on targeting someone like Newton—he wasn’t seeking to cause any harm to anyone, he just wanted the coding practice. It was a pointless diversion from the dullness of his typical evenings. He’d only gotten far enough to load up the personal documents folder of the computer he’d chosen at random (they were _asking for it_ , using an unencrypted P2P filesharing program, Hermann felt) to see a few clearly self-taken photographs of the owner and some in-progress research projects belonging to an Office 365 user named Newton Geißler, before the man himself fought back, with new sentences appearing in the midst of the Word doc Hermann was reading that amounted to variations on the plead to “give me bakc m y co mpUTEr y ou dickk”

They chatted for a bit via Word; Newton ended their conversation, which had gone on for some time, discussing the contents of Newton’s research (and Hermann tried to work in a way to _profusely_ apologize for making another student’s life more stressful than it needed to be) by giving Hermann his Skype contact information.

It seemed innocent enough to contact him. Hermann never intended to hack his computer again—he wasn’t going to invade the privacy of a…a…new friend. It had been…enjoyable, the last few months, to have someone to talk about science with; to rewatch the _Battlestar Galactica_ remake and _The X-Files_ with; to have someone to message while Hermann was at work—he enjoyed Newton’s company and conversation.

He hadn’t know what to do last night, when Newton implied that he thought of Hermann as…more than a friend. It wasn’t an objectionable idea, or nerves that frightened him, it was the _ethics_ of the situation, Hermann told himself. One knew more about the other’s identity than he should, and Hermann knew he was at fault for keeping Newton in the dark about his own identity, but…he hadn’t…felt ready yet, to share more. His face, his name, his current situation, his _life_. People make promises that they will be understanding about these things, and in Hermann’s world, he’d seen those promises broken more times than not.

To think Newton had tracked him down in person was ridiculous to consider now. It was just _chance_ that they met like this.

How _horrifying_ fate was.

About an hour later, Hermann curled into bed, with new Skype alerts waiting for him on his phone. It was usual points of conversation with “Newt”—nothing seemed off with the other man at all.

True to his word, he showed up at closing time the next day, to purchase his decorations—somewhat. He said he was going to have to “pace himself” and buy “only as many as I need at a time” which seemed to be a wreath a day. And the day after that. And after that. Hermann didn’t have a day off until almost the holiday itself. He spoke with Newton-online less and less; since he was already spending so much time with Newton, it was redundant.

Newton-in-person was abrasive, loud, annoying, manic, childish, idiotic, _impossible_ ; he was larger than life, extroverted, warm, energetic, brilliant, amusing, _captivating_. They seemed to bicker by default; this didn’t dissuade Newton and it certainly didn’t dissuade Hermann, either. It was… _exhilarating_ to have the same kinds of conversations he’d been having with Newton-online with Newton-in-person. It was so much _better_. Odd at first, but….

Hermann was lucky he was the only person who worked his shift at the store—he would have been fired long ago, for how much time he spent talking with Newton instead of tending to any of his other job responsibilities. Newton came in earlier every day; they talked for longer and longer after closing time each time, as well.

Newton finally explained what he was buying so many damn _wreaths_ for (apparently Hermann’s store sold the cheapest ones around—it was worth the drive, Newton explained.) He intended to build his own miniature “Christmas Godzilla”—Hermann held Newton’s iPhone (of course he used an iPhone, of _course_ ) with disdain as he examined the picture Newton wanted him to study.

The _thing_ was _monstrous_ ; Newton teased him for saying so, since it was _literally_ a monster—Hermann grabbed some expired flyers, and flipped them to the blank side. Building such a thing out of deconstructed _wreaths_ was _not_ going to work; he drew diagrams and jotted out some calculations to explain to Newton _why_ , but the other man just stared back at him, mouth agape. Hermann gave up.

____________________

 

Newt was playing a game when he realized he hadn’t checked Skype in a while, and what he saw made his stomach sink.

He hadn’t messaged H. in _days_ , not since he’d gotten really wrapped up in his dumb adventures to the crappy Christmas store. Christmas confused him enough as it was, and so did the unbelievable cranky guy who was somehow Newt’s age who worked the front counter, the guy who wrote the extra ‘n’ in his name on his name badge in Sharpie, and _corrected_ Newt’s plans for reverse engineering the _coolest_ mall decoration he’d ever seen grace the internet. Yeah, he’d been sucked in. So much for asking H. to be more than online friends; Newt couldn't even stay monogamous with his crushes, for fuck’s sake!

Newt knew he developed crushes easily, but there was a big difference between a crush and A Crush. And this was the _real deal_. They both had been, but…

It hadn’t taken much for him to fall for H., and it was taking even less with Hermann, probably because he was so _hot_ on top of everything else, ugh.

Both of them were so similar, they even had the same first initial…it was eerie. Maybe he was only supposed to meet H. so he’d know to pay attention to the same traits he’d like in H. when he met Hermann. There was always the very real possibility that H. wasn’t even a real _person_ , or was lying about who he was or something—Newt had never cared, it just… _helped_ that Hermann was right here, and sure, he didn’t know if Hermann was _interested_ but his desire to test the waters out and _see_ was clearly consuming him.

Newt went to go have a good pity party in front of his mirror. His looked sad as shit and pathetic. “Alright, buddy,” he said to himself, slapping his palms across the sink edges and leaning forward to have a good look at himself up close. “Your name is Newton Geiszler and you’re going to have to break things off with your sort-of online boyfriend because you’re cheating on him. Sort of. You’re _thinking_ about it, which is as bad as the real thing, I’m figuring.” Okay, maybe that was a little extreme. He was thinking about asking Hermann out, which meant there was like a 80% chance he wouldn’t end up doing it because as much as he liked to pretend he was good at taking the lead on things like this, he _sucked_ at it, but _still._ He’d gone from wanting one guy to be his boyfriend to wanting a totally different, _new_ one in like a _week,_ so he wasn’t really trusting _anything_ about himself right now.

The worst part? It didn’t even _feel wrong._ It felt totally _normal_ to like both of them, and to replace H. with Hermann. Newt knew he was kind of a crappy person deep down, but _that_ realization—that he wasn’t even going out of his way to justify any of how he felt, his psychology just said it felt okay by _default_ …yuck. Damn. Jury’s in, Newt sucks.

Well, no time like the present to go make a mess of things.

He would figure things out as he went along. He always rolled like that.

____________________

 

There was no need for this store to even remain in _existence_ , yet alone be open on Christmas Eve. Hermann found it pointless, but he wouldn’t really mind working the shift—the holiday was meaningless to him at this juncture in his life—but there was supposedly a blizzard in progress and he was _not_ looking forward to trying to walk home in it.

He was obsessively checking and rechecking the weather on his phone, trying to keep his mind off anything _else_ that would make today more stressful than it needed to be.

The store had been empty for the last hour by the time Newton showed up.

“Thought the snow would keep me away?” Newton beamed, hopping up on the other side of the counter, alongside the register Hermann sat behind. Hermann had given up on trying to enforce the “don’t sit there” rule early on. Newton was holding the pile of papers Hermann had written on the other night, along with looked like a printout of a portion of his thesis—they’d been discussing it yesterday. It was likely the same document they’d first spoken to each other in. Hermann’s heart sank.

“The threat of the snow worsening would have kept _me_ away. From work today. I don’t…” he hated talking about this. “I do not like walking in the snow.”

Newton blinked, not even looking at Hermann’s cane, like he thought Newton might. “I could give you a ride home, if you want? You’re not gonna believe me, but I’m actually a really good driver, even in the snow!”

Newton didn’t even put up a pretense of being in the store to buy anything today. Hermann didn’t even know if he’d made the _shrubbery_ he was so obsessed with—he seemed like he’d just come to spend time with Hermann. _Does he not have anyone else to spend the holiday with?_

Hermann didn’t know how to understand Newton, at all. He was happy for the fact that there was some space between them—he felt like he was edging towards “overwhelmed” more and more today. Newton rambled on and on about something, Hermann barely registered any of it at all. Newton paused only to send a text message—a long one, at that. He typed away while Hermann tried to _focus_.

He attempted to temper any kind of daydreaming like this, but he couldn’t help but be sucked into the fantasy of making Newton _shut up_ , of how _easy_ it would be to slid up off the barstool, cross the distance between them in about two determined strides, run his hands up Newton’s thighs…it had been too enticing to think of every time he saw Newton in another pair of ridiculously tight jeans…he would slid his hand under that trashy faded t-shirt Newton was wearing, finally getting to touch his warm, soft skin…he would slot their hips together, foreheads almost touching, breathing the same air for a moment… he would lean Newton back on the counter, card his free hand through the waves of Newton’s hair, pulling _just enough_ to coax Newton’s head back, and Newton would _like that, very much_. Hermann would swallow Newton’s moan, kiss him as he holds Newton’s hips in place, Hermann not having to explain anything verbally, Newton clearly _understanding_ —

Hermann heard a ding, a sound he hadn’t heard in a while. Newton didn’t react, so it wasn’t his phone—Hermann reached for his own. A new Skype message—from—

Another ding. Hermann couldn’t even unlock his phone before there was another one.

“For God’s sake, Newton, what _is it?_ ” he hissed, looking at the _tirade_ of messages Newton was sending him. Was sending “H.”, rather. Newton _still didn’t react_. He was pouring all his attention into his phone, and looking quite distressed while he was doing it.

The first message he’d sent was incredibly long; Hermann skimmed it. All the worst fears Hermann had about how convoluted this situation had become, and how Newton might be reacting to it, were contained in the essay he’d typed Hermann, along with a few other revelations that made Hermann’s heart constrict even more.The rapid-fire IMs after it, that were _still_ rolling in, were various takes on apologizing for the previous message, which was like watching Newton manage to find a worse way to stick his foot in his mouth with each new message.

“NEWTON!” Hermann finally bellowed, trying to get his attention, since the incessant electronic _dinging_ wasn't clearly not doing the job. He thrust his phone in Newton’s face, so he could see. Newton looked alarmed, but took the phone from him, holding it close to his face to see what was on the screen, scrolling through the messages.

“Aww, dude, no way, why would you do this to me? You hacked my _phone?_ I’m getting so _tired_ of people hacking my shit, oh my God—“

“Newton, please, _must_ I explain? _How_ would I have access to a two-way Skype conversation if I wasn’t the _other participant_?”

As the truth occurred to Newton, his eyes went wide. He typed something into his phone, without even looking at the screen, and sent it. Hermann’s phone chimed immediately.

Hermann expected a wide range of possible reactions, but not the one he got.

Newton’s face softened in a way Hermann would have never expected possible; he couldn’t look more _vulnerable_. Hermann was overcome with emotion—he—he couldn’t—

It was worth fantasizing about kissing Newton before, because Hermann knew now exactly what to do. It was so much less graceful that he’d envisioned, of course, but _so_ much better. He hadn’t expected Newton’s legs around his waist, his fingernails along Hermann’s back, making him _shiver_ , and the way Newton pulled on Hermann’s lower lip with his teeth and _sucked_ , that Newton would moan even doing _that_ …

Hermann pulled away (as best he could—Newton was _clinging_ to him) and a quiet second passed between them as they locked eyes, breathing almost in sync. “Do you need me to _explain_ , I feel like I owe you so many explanations -”

Newton shook his head, laughing softly. “Naw, I’m good, I think I finally caught on.” Hermann felt himself grin back slightly. Only Newton could switch gears that fast; only Newton could not need any more explanations than _this_. “Hey, let’s go home first though, okay?” Newton asked softly, stroking the back of Hermann’s head.

Hermann couldn’t disagree with that. Damn the shop; he locked up as quickly as he could, and they braved their way back home in the white out.

They went to sleep much later that night, after drinks (in person _was_ better, Newton was _right_ ) and picking up where they left off before.

____________________

**_December 2028_ **

“Brother, that thing is _frightening_ , but I can’t deny that it’s _awesome_ ,” Tendo Choi, Newt and Hermann’s next door neighbor, had come over to admire the “Christmas Godzilla” in their front yard, after Newt finished rigging it with lights. Hermann huffed in response, and Tendo clapped him on the back. “No one but me can win bragging rights for having the coolest, most eccentric couple as neighbors. And you know I mean that as a compliment.”

Hermann looked at Tendo, half of his mouth twitching in a grin.

Newton ran forward to give Tendo a excited hug, and slotted his hand in Hermann’s own, inside his coat pocket.

Tendo smiled at the both of them. “I always forget, how’d you two met again? I keep thinking it has something to do with science.”

“Online,” Newton answered.

“At work,” Hermann said at the same time.

They looked at each other, and Tendo knew what was coming next. Their bickering always escalated so quickly, he could barely make out either side of the conversation. Good, it had worked…he slid away, back to his own family, and left them to enjoy each other’s company.

It was clear they loved it.


End file.
